


Economics

by Calais_Reno



Series: Fin de Siècle [12]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Debt, Don't copy to another site, Economics, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, Poverty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22303459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calais_Reno/pseuds/Calais_Reno
Summary: Simon Thomas, former member of the Baker Street Irregulars, has learned enough about economics to understand what he owes John Watson.This is part of a Victorian AU where Reichenbach happened, but Moran won and carried on what Moriarty had started. At this point, Watson has been released after serving two years in prison for gross indecency and Holmes is presumed dead, but actually working his way home.
Relationships: John Watson & Original Character, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: Fin de Siècle [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1551937
Comments: 10
Kudos: 47





	Economics

Even as a small boy, I could see that the way a man spoke told how much he got paid. That was when we lived off of Seymour Street, ‘twixt the railyards, Euston and St Pancras. We weren’t the least of the poor, but we never had enough to do more than just get by. In my neighbourhood, most men were workmen, porters, costermongers. Above them were the drivers, the conductors, the artisans, the shopkeepers. These were the ones we boys looked to if we wanted to earn a few pennies. They weren’t so far above our folk that they looked on us as dirt. Probably, they’d once done what we were doing, picking up odd jobs, running errands, making deliveries.

That’s what the boys in every neighbourhood do. We didn’t look down on the folk below us, and we respected the ones on top of the heap— the clerks, the teachers, the doctors, the solicitors. We each have our place in the economy, as Mr Joe says, but it’s the same language we all speak, even if the accent is different.

That’s why the two toffs that I used to see in the neighbourhood didn’t look like prospective employers to me. The tall one had a face like a hawk and eyes that looked as if he could see what was inside your head. He spoke so posh you wondered what he was doing on Seymour Street, why he wasn’t having tea with the Queen instead. The short one was more ordinary looking, but better dressed. He wasn’t so posh in his speech, but he carried a doctor’s bag, so you knew he wasn’t hurting for money either.

Some of the bigger boys were placing bets on whether it would be worthwhile to try and jump them, but there were too many coppers around. Instead, they put me up to dipping a hand in the tall one’s pocket and grabbing a few coins. I could hear coins in his pocket; he was jingling them as he talked to the shorter one. I didn’t particularly want to pick his pocket, but I had to look like I was trying, just to give the bigger boys a laugh.

“‘Pon my word, Watson,” he was saying. “You’d think a man that clever would disguise himself better.”

“What gave him away?” the short toff asked.

“The teeth, Doctor. Always notice the teeth.”

The one called Watson laughed. “I did notice, but until you said—“

The tall man suddenly turned to me. His arm shot out and his hand went around my wrist. “Come here, boy.”

“I didn’t do nothing,” I said.

“You haven’t done _anything_.” He released my wrist. I thought about running, but I was having a moment of confusion, stuck between the sudden grab and the grammar lesson. Hands on his knees, he lowered himself a bit so he could look me in the face. “What’s your name, son?”

“Simon, sir. Simon Thomas.”

He smiled. “Then listen carefully, Simon. Do you know Constable Brown?”

“‘Course I do,” I said.

“I need you to find him and deliver a message.” He took a small notebook and a pencil out of his pocket.

While he was writing, the doctor asked, “Do you know who this gentleman is, Simon?”

“No, sir. But I know you. You’re Doctor Watson.”

The tall man ripped the page from his notebook. “How do you know that?”

“Because I heard you call him _Watson,_ and then _Doctor._ ”

Grinning, he turned to his companion. “Well, Watson, your fame has gone before you, and left mine in the dust.”

“I’d hardly call it fame, Holmes. This sharp-eared boy was simply trying to catch his potential employers’ names.” He smiled at me. “I am Doctor Watson, as you said, Mr Thomas. And this gentleman is Sherlock Holmes. Have you heard that name before?”

“Yes, sir.” I looked up at the hawk-faced man. “You’re a detective.”

“A consulting detective,” he said. “Consulting means that I don’t work for the police, but I help them out when they’re in over their heads. I hire reliable boys to deliver messages, watch suspects, and run down information sometimes. I’m guessing that you’re not a timid boy, or you wouldn’t have been thinking about picking my pocket.” He studied me for a moment, a small smile on his lips. “What I’m wondering is, can you do as you’re told and stay out of trouble?”

“I can,” I said fervently, thinking of those coins.

He folded over the note he’d written and handed it to me. “Find Constable Brown and give this to him. Then bring his reply back to me.”

I went as quick as I could and came back with the reply. Mr Holmes took a shilling out of his pocket and dropped it into my hand. I quickly slipped it into my own pocket before the other boys might notice. I had never made an entire shilling in one day.

“Can you read, Simon?” asked the doctor while the detective was reading the reply. “Have you been to school?”

“A bit,” I said. “I had to quit going when Dad died. I get jobs now, so’s Mum don’t have to take in so much piecework.”

He pulled something out of his pocket. It was a paperback storybook with pictures. At first I thought it was a book for little kids, like fairy tales, but I from the picture on the front I guessed that it was an adventure story.

“Go on,” he said. “You can have it. The next time Mr Holmes and I are over here, I’ll want to see if you’ve read it.”

The words didn’t look long or difficult, but I was embarrassed not to recognise some of them. “It’s a crime story,” he said. “Actually, it’s one of my own stories, _The Speckled Band_. Somebody’s drawn pictures to go with it.”

Then I saw a picture of Sherlock Holmes holding what looked like a crop or a stick, getting ready to thrash someone, maybe a villain. I paged through it and saw another picture of a woman who’d fainted. “Is it a murder mystery?” I asked.

“Indeed it is,” said Mr Holmes, smiling. “And if you can figure it out before the last page, I’ll give you another shilling.” So saying, he pulled the final page from the story, folded it, and put it in his pocket. “Come and see us when you’ve read it. 221B Baker Street.”

Reading that story was my greatest academic achievement up until that point. I hadn’t figured out the ending, not entirely, when I knocked on the door of his house, but when I told Mr Holmes what I’d guessed, he gave me another shilling.

That was the very beginning of working for Mr Holmes and Dr Watson. They lived on Baker Street, the other side of the park, and were happy to send me on errands. When they weren’t so busy, Dr Watson made me read aloud from a story. If I didn’t know a word, he showed me how to sound it out and figure out the meaning from clues, just like a mystery. Before I knew it, I’d read five stories, then ten. I graduated to penny dreadfuls, and after that, he gave me entire books with leather covers to read.

If Dr Watson turned me into a reader, Mr Holmes taught me how to speak properly. He told me I was a smart boy, and that I spoke well for Seymour Street. If I wanted to make something of myself, though, I would have to learn how to speak with more class. He could tell I had it in me to be something, he said. So I started working on it, paying attention to how they spoke. Dr Watson taught me new words; Mr Holmes taught me how to say them like an educated man.

I learned a lot from Mr Holmes. He worked on murders mostly, but was careful never to put us boys in any danger. He and Dr Watson would give us a shilling or two for helping out, and they asked for help often enough that it worked out to a tidy sum each week. From them I got my first job references. I’d gotten to know Mr Lestrade and a few other police detectives, and it was good to be recognised. Oft times, when something is happening in the streets, the peelers just round up all the young men and put them in a wagon, take them in. Because they knew me at sight, I could set them straight on who was at fault, and who wasn’t.

I say all this now because it explains why I went to Pentonville Prison on the day Dr Watson was released, why I brought him home with me. He and Mr Holmes had given me a better life than what I’d ever expected, and I could never pay that back. And they’d both gotten a worse lot than what they deserved.

And the world has become a worse place, too. I don’t understand why Moran’s arresting poor boys who are just putting together how they might make a living, but he is. His gang are out in the street, looking for vagrants so they can send them to the workhouse, where they toil like slaves and it’s never enough to get them free.

Even Dr Watson, who doctors the folk in our neighbourhood for free, could be picked up and sent away. He lost his medical license when he was sent away to prison, and now he’s got to do something menial if he wants to keep out of the workhouse. It isn’t right. He’s not taking work away from other doctors, and it’s not like any of them want to help poor people who can’t pay much, but that’s the law, and Dr Watson is breaking it.

In economics, Mr Joe says, everybody has his place. A toff might look down on an odd-jobber or ahawker, but somebody has to do those jobs, and it’s not going to be a posh-sounding gentleman. We all respect the division of labour. Part of economy is mobility, too, and a rich man might find himself poorer as easily as a poor man might improve his lot. It’s part luck, part industry. I never expected to be working as a clerk in a law office, but I was given a chance, thanks to Mr Holmes and Dr Watson. It’s not a debt I’ll ever be able to clear, but it’s one I gladly make payments on.


End file.
